We Need A Democratic, Transparent Election

To all members of the PFT:

In September, the Caucus of Working Educators announced that we are running a slate of candidates for PFT leadership in the 2016 internal PFT election. Many PFT members don’t know anything about our electoral process, because they’ve never had a chance to vote in one--the current Collective Bargaining Team (CB Team) leadership has held office unopposed since 2004.

We want a democratic, transparent election process for all candidates and members. Unfortunately, as a union we are not there yet. Here are a few contested parts of the election process that every PFT member needs to know about:

The PFT Executive Board sets the timeline and procedures for the election, and have thus far refused to make the arrangements, despite repeated requests from the Caucus over the last two months. All we know is that, according to the PFT Constitution, the election must happen between January and April of 2016. Although there has been some hint by PFT employees that the timeline will mirror the ceremonial election process of 2012 (where the CB leadership cast a ballot for themselves on an “election day” in February), no official word has been given. Why is the current leadership refusing to start up the process? All PFT members deserve to know the timeline and procedures for the upcoming election--and they deserve to know it now.

PFT Employees are not allowed to campaign for the CB Team while they are “on the clock” for their paid PFT jobs, nor may they fund any part of the CB campaign out of the PFT’s pocket. However, any group within the union is free to meet in schools to discuss matters relevant to them.The PFT cannot prohibit caucus members from congregating, just as the caucus would never attempt to prohibit CB team members from meeting once their official PFT work day was over.

This is also true for distributing materials to mailboxes. According to our contract with the School District of Philadelphia, any PFT member who wishes to distribute materials about union business has the right to do so. The Caucus of Working Educators is a part of the PFT.

PFT members and the Philadelphia Public school community have been suffering through many years of the undemocratic actions of the School Reform Commission. This PFT internal election can and must set an example for how democratic elections can empower and energize a community. That can only happen when members are allowed to freely engage with each other and exchange ideas openly. Any attempt to silence, alienate, or misinform our membership weakens our collective power.

All of us in the PFT must build on the incredible city and state electoral victories we all shared in on Tuesday by giving all of our members a voice in discussing, debating, and deciding the future of our union.